


Three Times Sherlock Was Strangled and One Time He Wasn't Sure

by iriswallpaper



Series: Variations Verse [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angry John, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mugging, POV Sherlock Holmes, PTSD Sherlock, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reaction, Strangulation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 20:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7859494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswallpaper/pseuds/iriswallpaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic is set long before the events of Variations on Happily Ever After, on the night Sherlock returned from his "death" and surprised John at his proposal dinner with Mary. </p><p>Sherlock returns to Baker Street and reflects on John's reaction at the Landmark, attempting to rationalize the events of the evening. But his body knows, and his physical reactions make it hard for his mind to make peace with John's actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Sherlock Was Strangled and One Time He Wasn't Sure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RavenMorganLeigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenMorganLeigh/gifts).



> Trigger Warnings: PTSD, detailed description of strangulation, codependency

Shutting the door softly, turning the lock, Sherlock felt safe. Safe enough to finally let the effects of the evening crack through his carefully cultured calm. His hands began to shake as he took of his coat and hung it carefully on its hook. On second thought, he lifted it and held it close as he dropped heavily onto the sofa. He tried to smooth out the coat over his lap but his arms shook so much, he ended up balling up the fabric instead.

 _Hands around his neck_. Sherlock closed his eyes tightly to shut out the images flooding his mind, of hands around his neck. Gloved hands, the hands of a trained assassin who knew more ways to kill than Sherlock knew to get out of being killed. A weight much superior to his own pressing him down, the damp smell of wet wool mixed with three-days-without-bathing stink.

He’d writhed and fought like a fury. Eventually he’d gotten free and even broken those hands that had tried to snuff the life out of him. That had been in Istanbul, early on.

Then in Krakow. It hadn’t been hands but a club across his windpipe, firmly held in place by the punk who tried to roll him. The idiot had jumped him in the dark and demanded money. Sherlock had crouched and fought, snarling like an animal, kicking and punching but eventually overcome by the better-fed thug who’d strangled him with the blunt length of wood he wielded in place of a gun. His thumbs were what eventually saved Sherlock - his thumbs connecting with the punk’s eyes, jabbing with all his strength as his vision went black around the edges. The club dropped and the idiot doubled over, clutching his face, temporarily blinded. Sherlock had retrieved the club and cracked the thug over the head. He hadn’t waited around to see if the punk’s skull cracked - he was well into the next block before he slowed his pace. He might have killed the thug (he hoped he did).

And finally in Serbia, in the damp cellar where his brother had found him. It was a chain that time, wrapped around his neck and jerked from behind as he sat bound in a rough wooden chair, splinters digging into the flesh of his back while his windpipe threatened to crush. Questions hurled at him in rapid-fire Serbian. His mulish silence, face sullen until the chain looped around his neck from behind and quickly jerked tight. His legs, kicking futilely at the dirty concrete floor as his body writhed as much as his wrists, bound to the chair’s arms, allowed. A brief respite for more questions to be hurled at him while he choked and sobbed, then the chain crushing his neck again before he had time to take a full breath.

Eyes open, Sherlock took in the familiar clutter of 221B. _Home_. Laying his head on the back of the sofa, Sherlock stretched his neck and swallowed. He was safe, his windpipe had survived intact. No lasting damage from any of the strangulation attempts he’d survived.

The shaking that had started in his hands now seemed to travel to his core, chilling him in spite of the room’s warmth. He grasped the beloved coat’s collar and hauled it up to his chin, covering his still-smarting neck.

John’s hands around his neck tonight had not been very constricting. Comparatively, it had been nothing much. Certainly John’s intent hadn’t truly been to strangle him. Not _strangle_ him - not cut off his airway until he died. John had been angry but not _murderously angry_.

Sherlock swallowed. Was he minimizing tonight’s assault - all three of them - because he cared about John and had missed him so desperately? Did it really matter what his friend’s motivations had been, when his behavior was abusive? Snuggling more securely into the Belstaff, Sherlock stifled a sound that tried to escape his throat. John wasn’t like _that_. He hadn’t tortured Sherlock, or roughed him up to rob him, or for information. John had roughed him up because he was upset.

Breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, long calming breaths, Sherlock tried to reassure himself.

 _John_ wasn’t like the others.

John _wasn’t_ like the others.

 _John_ _wasn’t like the others_.

It had been a bad reaction. A reaction to Sherlock springing himself on John without warning at an inopportune time. That’s it.

Then why was he still shaking so?

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend to write this tiny fic but yesterday I saw a gifset on tumblr of extreme closeups of John strangling Sherlock at the Landmark. I had a very upsetting reaction; I don't use the word 'triggered' lightly, but it was pretty appropriate to how I reacted to the gifset. This little fic was my attempt to work it all out so I could sleep last night (didn't work, didn't sleep).
> 
> It seemed to "fit" with the Variations Verse, so here it is.
> 
> I'm gifting this to [ RavenMorganLeigh](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenMorganLeigh/pseuds/RavenMorganLeigh), who has been a huge encourager for me and my Variations Verse.


End file.
